Oregon 97, WMU 88: Interesting night, for several reasons

EUGENE, Ore. -- How good was Western Michigan in the second half of Monday night's loss? Better than in any game in the last two seasons, in my opinion.

Better than last year's win against a poorly coached Virginia Tech team. Better than the victory vs. an overrated San Diego State squad. And better than a 22-point win against a Kent State team that played its worst game of the season, according to its beat writer.

This Oregon team is on par with last year's Pitt team, which destroyed WMU 86-67 in a game that wasn't that close. Monday night's game was as close as the score -- perhaps closer (more on that in a moment) -- and No. 11 Oregon, I think, is a more complete team than the No. 4-ranked Panthers last year.

The Broncos have to carry this over to games against Loyola, Detroit and Davidson, all in the next eight days. If they do, even with two of those on the road, they should be no worse than 3-3 after the first six games and very likely will be 4-2.

Now, on to why the game was actually closer ...

I sat next to the gentleman who was evaluating the officials for the Pac 10 Conference, a former referee himself in the NBA and college. There were several calls for which he didn't agree and a couple of them really hurt WMU.

First, after Shawntes Gary finally appeared to get on track with an in-rhythm jumper to cut the Oregon lead to 25-16, Gary was whistled for his second foul on Oregon's next possession with 8:37 left in the first half and forced to the bench until the break.

My new friend -- we'll call him Mr. Ref, because while none of it was officially off the record, I didn't tell him I'd be using this info, either -- yelled out "push off" on the Duck's Frantz Dorsainvil before the foul on Gary and was vocally upset with the official for the call. Without that call, Gary remains in the game, perhaps finally on track, and Oregon has two fewer points via Dorsainvil's free throws.

About 30 seconds later, Joe Reitz was called for his second foul on an offensive rebound attempt, giving Dorsainvil two more points on free throws and sending WMU's best interior weapon out of the game for eight minutes. After the foul (the first call on Reitz was shaky, too), Mr. Ref said of the official, "How did he come up with that one?"

Mr. Ref also disagreed with two early traveling calls on WMU (and one on Oregon), both of which wiped out scores, saying that traveling is the call referees screw up most often.

In the second half, Mr. Ref responded to a foul on David Kool that resulted in Oregon making 1 of 2 free throws with "No, no, no."

He also disagreed with a later foul on Derek Fracalossi with 2:20 remaining.

These are just the plays that I asked him about or those that led to an outburst. I'm sure there were others and, to be fair, I didn't ask him about more than one or two calls on Oregon.

Mr. Ref also said, seeming honest, that referees affiliated with major conferences aren't ever pressured to make calls in favor of their league school, and he also talked about the pressure on these guys to get it right. If their evaluation scores don't reach a certain point, after three years, they're out.

Still, you can't put a point figure on having Reitz and Gary out for the last eight minutes of the first half, after which WMU trailed 46-30.

Twelve Oregon points came directly out of those perceived blown calls in what wound up as a nine-point game. Understand, however, that Oregon answered every WMU run with enough buckets to keep the Broncos at bay. That might have happened anyway. But it's worth mentioning that WMU's performance may have been even more impressive than its close loss to a team with national championship aspirations.